Thursday, Week 4 OT (St. Agatha) February 5, 2026
Fr. Alexander Albert St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville
“I am going the way of all flesh.” When King David says that to his son Solomon, he means he is going to die. But the way he expresses that is important for us to understand. Death really is the way of all flesh. Everyone dies eventually. King Solomon is a legendary king, but he’s dead now. The 12 apostles that Jesus sends out? All dead. The people they healed, the ones they delivered from demons? All dead.
When we really think about that, it kind of forces us to reconsider our perspective and ask some important questions. If everyone dies eventually, why does it matter? Why does it matter of King Solomon obeys all the laws of God? Why does it matter if the Apostles do or don’t bring money or food on their journey? Why does it matter if the towns they visit repent or not? Why did it matter so much to St. Agatha – today’s saint – that she remain a virgin? Regardless of what all those people did or didn’t to, they are dead and buried. So why bother?
Of course you know the answer. Even after a short time in a Catholic school, every child knows that Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus conquered death. So, even if we do “go the way of all flesh,” as King David put it, we believe that Jesus Christ offers a different way for our flesh to go… or rather, he offers a way for our flesh to go past death. All flesh goes to the grave but those who follow Jesus Christ can keep going past death and into eternal life. That way beyond death, however, is only available to those who repent and believe. So yeah, we all die but what we do before we died affects whether or not we get to enjoy resurrection afterwards. Life is not pointless and death is not the end.
Still, most of you are very young and all this probably sounds like a bunch of pretty ideas. You nod along because I say it, but do you really get it? Do you actually make decisions based on that truth? Or just go along with whatever works and makes you look good for now? Some of you know death very well, but many more of you keep it at arm’s length… just a vague idea that you’ll deal with later.
St. Agatha did not do that. As a young Christian girl in the ancient roman empire, she knew death very well. Many Christians were taken and killed by the romans for their faith. Rather than learn to be afraid of this fact, Agatha learned to draw courage from it… she learned to make decisions based not fear of death but on hope of eternal life. This is the only way to make sense of the most important decision she ever made.
She decided to be a bride of Christ. She chose to remain a virgin for the rest of her life so she could belong to Jesus in a special way. Never mind that a rich and powerful roman prefect wanted to marry her, she chose virginity for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Quintianus, the man who wanted to marry her, used his power to have her locked up, tortured, and eventually killed. Agatha died at the age of 20.
Twenty years is not a long time to live! Why do that? Why throw away a life so young? Why not marry the rich and powerful man, have a good long life, and then just repent at the end of her life? If she was going to die eventually, why not make the most of it while she lived?
That’s the logic of the world. To Agatha’s mind, death is inevitable so letting it control our decisions is silly. Death can take away my flesh, but as long as I don’t let fear control me, it cannot take away my soul and my love. So she chose to remain faithful to her vow to Jesus.
What’s interesting is that the romans tried to kill her several times. God miraculously protected her several times. Why, though? If she was going to die a martyr, why would God go through the trouble of saving her a few times and then letting her die anyway just a few days later? Because, like her virginity, her miraculous survival sent a message to the world. What message? That death has no power over God! It’s as if God saved Agatha a few times just to show the world that he can. That way, when he and his saints tell the world that God will raise us from the dead one day, they have a reason to believe him. The martyrs are God’s way of saying “hey, I can stop death whenever I want, but I won’t because what I’m going to do later is even better.”
It’s like the people the apostles heal in the Gospel. They eventually die anyway, but at least now they know that God does have the power to stop death and to heal them. That way, when God chooses not to use his power, when he chooses to let us die, we have more reason to trust him when he says death is not the end.
That’s actually the same thing that God says through consecrated virginity. When a man or woman can get married but chooses to serve God instead, it’s our way of saying “look, we could do like everyone else and raise a family, but we won’t because we want to focus more on what comes next.” Like martyrdom, like miraculous healings, virginity is the choice to not use the power we have as a way of reminding everyone to trust God’s power. The Church considers virginity special not because sex is evil – it’s not evil, it’s good. The Church honors virginity and celibacy because the choice to not use that power is a powerful witness to trust in God’s power.
Still, why do all that? Why healings and martyrs and consecrated virgins? Because even though we all know that everyone must “go the way of all flesh,” that everyone must eventually die, it’s too easy to forget about it. We need reminders, visible signs, witnesses to the fact that our life is about more than the flesh and more than this world.
Jesus asks his twelve apostles to do something extraordinary. He asks them to leave behind the normal way of life so that they can bear witness to a supernatural way of life. He asks them to be visible reminders that despite inevitable death, there is a good reason to trust God’s promises about what comes after death. Many of the apostles were never married and even those who were leave behind the normal way of married life to become apostles and martyrs.
In every generation, God asks men and women to do something extraordinary. In her generation, St. Agatha said yes. She remained a virgin and chose not to use her power to give earthly life in order to bear witness to God’s promise of heavenly life. In our generation, some of the most joyful people I know are those who have said yes, choosing virginity or celibacy… choosing obedience and sacrifice to bear witness to the world that death is not the end.
Many of you know firsthand the power that death has in this world. You know how desperately people need reminders that death is not the end, that “the way of all flesh” does not have to be the only way. Every Christian is called to bear witness to that fact in some way. But some of us are called to bear witness in an especially visible way. Some of us… some of you are called to set aside the ordinary and natural power we have to produce life, to be like Agatha or the Apostles who serve as visible, tangible reminders that the kingdom of God is at hand. Will you be that witness? Will you answer the call of your king?